A lot of hullabaloo has been made over the last 24 hours regarding the comic Saga #12. To catch up the uninformed, basically there’s a popular comic that has two “postage stamp” size scenes of gay sex in it, so it got banned from the App Store.

Everyone immediately blamed Apple and screamed “censorship” but it turns out Apple didn’t have anything to do with Saga #12’s banishment at all. It was Comixology.

In a letter posted to customers on the company blog, David Steinberger, CEO of Comixology decided to make it clear that Apple was not at all responsible for the banning:

“In the last 24 hours there has been a lot of chatter about Apple banning Saga #12 from our Comics App on the Apple App Store due to depictions of gay sex. This is simply not true, and we’d like to clarify.

As a partner of Apple, we have an obligation to respect its policies for apps and the books offered in apps. Based on our understanding of those policies, we believed that Saga #12 could not be made available in our app, and so we did not release it today.

We did not interpret the content in question as involving any particular sexual orientation, and frankly that would have been a completely irrelevant consideration under any circumstance.

Given this, it should be clear that Apple did not reject Saga #12.”

There is some good news though. Steinberger said that after talking to Apple, Comixology’s interpretation of the App Store policies was mistaken, so they’ll be publishing Saga #12 in the App Store really soon.

Bit odd that it took 24 hours for them to clarify this. Enjoying the free press?

davester13

“Steinberger said that after talking to Apple, Comixology’s interpretation of the App Store policies was mistaken, so they’ll be publishing Saga #12 in the App Store really soon”

But the real problem is Apple’s App Store policies. The way they are interpreted by Apple is not consistent NOR transparent. It is just as likely that their app would have been suddenly pulled WITHOUT NOTICE because it provided access to pornography. So they HAVE to self-censor because if they don’t, getting hit with Apple’s ban-hammer is worse, and is painful and takes a bunch of time to remove.

And if you made a standalone app that just permitted you to flip through this one comic, it would most likely be rejected by Apple for being pornographic.

About the author

Buster Hein is a freelance writer and social media expert who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.

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